#281: Tom Wilson, Chair, President and CEO, Allstate – Be brutal with your time

25:47I mean, you know, I'm sure you had people internally that would challenge you on this, you know, when you were getting started or not. And I just. No, I think we I think we did and we probably do. So, you know, like, be honest about that. And we have 54 ,000 people and there are sure some people who still think that that's don't want to encourage people to do anything. But if you look at your career and, you know, you're a corporate executive, then you're an entrepreneur and starting a business. Like if you didn't have that freedom and if you didn't have somebody supporting you emotionally to get that done, like how much different would your life be?

26:25And so I'm like, if I can help people do that, all state will be fine. Like we'll find someone else to adjust claims like it'll and it'll work for them and it might not work for somebody else. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I think purpose gives you joy in life. For me, you know, my purpose is to make the world a better place by developing better leaders. and I'm trying to do that at every stage in life from, you know, early childhood education, you know, all the way up to people who are in business. So, but that, that has provided a, a real focus. You know, when you think about the purpose that you've identified for, for Allstate, you know, how do you keep bringing that forward and keep reinforcing that in everything you do?

27:09Because it's obviously something that you're very passionate about. I am, uh, It's relentlessly boring. And I say it all the time. There are times when I'm like, oh, my God. And I sort of went through phases. First, it was you do it and you create it. You're very excited about it. Then you start talking about it. But then you kind of get bored saying the same thing all the time. Like, OK, let me talk about our four items. Then you realize that the benefits it can create for other people, you're not really being boring. The words are the same, but you're delivering them to a different set of people.

27:44And so everything I do, my team knows, everything I write, I'm always tying it into our shared purpose. When I do an employee communication, we talk about our shared purpose. I'm just always reminding people that this is why we exist. They may or may not agree with us, but at least they know what we're trying to do. So you know what you're trying to do. How has your purpose helped maybe change the way how you lead in some way? I think it's helped me let go a little bit, to be honest. So if my goal is to help other people achieve more meaning and success in their lives, and then when it comes to a business problem, let's say I think the answer is A and somebody else thinks it's B.

28:28I let them do B, as long as it's not going to be below the waterline. Below the waterline for us is, if it's below the waterline, you take a ship and the torpedo goes below the waterline, you sink. If it's above the waterline, You're okay. You don't like having a hole in your ship, but like, don't worry about it. So on those that are above the waterline, I think it's helped me say, let go of time. Like you don't, it doesn't have to be perfect. And you know what? More times than often they're right anyway. So it's not even like I'm giving anything up. But I find that I'm, hopefully I'm viewed as a more supportive leader.

29:06You know, in terms of like empowering others, I'm curious, You know, your background is financial. You've been a CFO. You know, you obviously are very well prepared. You know the details of the business. And yet also, not yet, and Allstate has very powerful marketing. You know, you've got the Mayhem campaign. You're in good hands with Allstate. So how involved do you get in that part of the business? I think so a lot. I figured you would because you look like a guy who's creative as well. You like to have fun. Yeah, I think actually I'm a salesperson. You know, I'm always selling some idea. I actually, when I went to business school, I had a marketing and strategy major.

29:54I didn't even have, it was a finance major, but you took like three classes and they gave you a stamp, you know. And so, and then I was, when I was an investment banker, I was selling businesses. So numbers are not that hard for me. They're reasonably easy for me. So I always find that sales skills and inspiring and communicating people are the key parts. And so I find myself always trying to, like I'm selling something all the time. I was talking to a guy the other day about how do we give credentials for high school and college students so they can actually be employable on something. And he said, you know, the best skill they need is sales skills.

30:34Everybody needs some sort of sales skills. So I find like that I'm mostly just a salesperson. Whether I'm selling you purpose and want you to purpose because I believe it'll be good for you. Or I'm selling insurance because I think you need to be protected. or I'm selling shareholders because I'm like, you know, you should invest in us because we're going to make you a bunch of money. I feel like this idea of being customer focused is really important to success. And, you know, your commercials, your Mayhem commercials are really great. Do you have a fun story behind any one of them? Yeah. So Mayhem is quite clever.

31:08He and I were doing a public service announcement at one point, and he's kind of a wacky guy, you know uh and he likes and we were it was a football commercial and he was breaking the table and all kinds of mayhem and at one point during one of the breaks he takes a piece of popcorn and he looks at me he says hey tom and i look at him and he throws and he hits me right in the middle of the forehead uh and uh and it's on tape and our team was like oh we can't show that i'm like you're kidding that's hysterical we have to show that so i'm like you know whatever works Whatever gets people engaged in, and if we can have humor, help them think that they should be buying insurance from us, then we're all for it.

31:48You know, and anyone who watches college football sees your All-State hands catching the made field goals and the extra points. If you had to borrow one leadership principle from the elite college football programs that are out there right now and bring it straight to your All-State executive team room, what would it be? It would be on leadership. It would be on collective success versus individual success. So I find sports have this great ability to get people to really put the enterprise called the team first, even though they're all sports stars and they don't want big contracts and stuff like that.

32:32And so I would be like, I like people who bleed blue. Yeah, I know that's right. Now we've got the new mask out and we know what your color is. Now, you mentioned the importance of customers. How do you personally stay on top of customers? I think it's about being in the business versus over the business. I think too many leaders go over the business, think they're not. And I'm like, you're in talking to employees. You go out like, well, we have a catastrophe. I go out and walk sites. I talk to customers. I'm like, what happened to you? How did this work? And so you're looking at all the small things that happen so that you can add them up and figure out if you're in the right direction.

33:12So I think whether that's riding along in a claim, trying to just put your head in power, it's about empathy. So, for example, we just launched something called deductible payment plans where if you buy insurance, you have a$500 deductible and you get in an accident, you don't have$500. bucks. Typically, you'd say, well, that's your problem. You agreed to 500. We've now started some in a couple of states. We're like, hey, we'll loan you the 500 bucks. And so you're putting yourself in their mindset. And I think you have to be in the business and out seeing people and being externally focused to do that.

33:50What's a story that you go back to? Because I imagine since you like to inspire people, you're pretty good at telling stories. And what's a story you go back to time and time again that really captures what being in good hands looks like from a customer perspective, when your team does it right. I would say that the portfolio of stories for us, because it's not always the same story, is always around a catastrophe. So when a hurricane comes and people, their house gets blown away, all their stuff's gone, they have no place to stay. you know we're there for them we have people who are motorhomes are storm chasers they're getting out there they're knocking on people's doors they get them apartments they get them clothes we have therapy dogs that we bring there in case you know they they're feeling like they lost a pet or something like that so those stories are very powerful the reason we use them is because it's easy to visualize them I think good stories you have to as a storyteller people have to be able to see it visually in their head.

34:55But the same thing happens every day. If you're in a car accident, it might not feel like a hurricane hit your house, but it's pretty traumatic. So those stories about catastrophes help us be empathetic for our customers when they need us most. When a major disaster hits, or even a car wreck for a customer, what leadership muscle matters most when you're dealing with a customer? You have to empower those claim adjusters do whatever it is they need to do to act. And the same with the team. So one time there was a big catastrophe and the cell towers were down. And our team was on with a bunch of other industry people.

35:36And somebody said, one of the cell companies said, hey, we've got 12 extra trucks that are in these satellite trucks. And our person said, I'll take all 12. Don't know how I'm going to use them. And if any of you, if we don't need them all, call me. I'll take them. So it's about acting right away. I need to get you in a, you need to be in a hospital, get in an ambulance, off we go. We're not going to debate what the policy say, what the policy not say. If there's water in your basement, get the water out of the damn basement and then we'll figure out whether it's covered or not. So I think, and that's true in many things in business when you're dealing with customers, having people who are empowered and importantly feel empowered.

36:15So they're not blaming it on a company. Well, I would do this for you, but you know, the rules are this, No customer wants to hear that. Is this something you think is deeply seated in Allstate or is this something you need to evolve? I think it's deeply seated in Allstate in catastrophes. I think it's something we need to involve on normal customer service. And how do you go about driving that home? I mean, how do you make that such a key point? I think there's two ways. One is I think we have four leadership behaviors at Allstate, one of which is clarity. And I think being really clear with people around what their boundaries are.

36:50And so helping them do that. The second way is we're going to use technology. So like, for example, we now write millions of emails using generative AI because it's just better. So as I understand it, Tom, you're a huge advocate, as you should be, for the insurance industry. I mean, you're very involved with industry matters. What do you think is most misunderstood about the insurance category by consumers that the industry really needs to deal with? Consumers think it's a one-on-one relationship when really our job is to bundle you together with other people who are like you. So you spread the losses between you.

37:35So what happens, you pay us$1 ,500 a year for car insurance. You don't have a loss for five years. And you think we kept all$1 ,500. And we actually took the$1 ,500 and we gave it to Josh because Josh had an accident, you didn't. Most people think of their relationship with their insurers as a one-to-one financial relationship when really our job is to bundle people together who have similar risk characteristics and spread the losses between you so that it's fair. Very, very good. You know, the insurance industry is extremely competitive. You know, what makes you different from State Farm, Geico and all the others?

38:17If you're going to say what's your competitive point of difference, what would it be? First, we're better at math than most of the industry. We're also better at operational settlement of claims. We pay the right amount. We don't underpay, but we pay, you know, you don't pay too much. You don't pay too little. And so as a result of that, my proof would be when you look at margins in the auto insurance business, we tend to make about four points more than the rest of the industry. And in homeowners, we make 75 percent of the gross profits. The whole industry loses money. Of those who make money, we have 75 percent of that and we have about 8 percent of market share.

39:02and that's because we're really good at math and we're really good at making sure that we fix stuff for customers, but we don't overpay for stuff. Insurance is all about managing risk. And as a leader, what's a risk you've taken that's personally scared you? I can't think of a first, just for surgeon general warning, I'm way out there on the risk spectrum. And so when you do those tests and stuff like that, But I'm very good about, like I always understand the facts before I make a decision, what the upside and downside are. I would say the biggest risk that I took, because I think risk is important to career advancement, it was a personal risk.

39:45And I think sometimes people get confused between company risk and personal risk. Sometimes they don't take company risks, even though the company can handle it, because they have a personal risk. and I've always been willing to say like if it's right for the company I'm going if I blow up then I blow up and so there are a number of those I've done and some some work some don't I would say the biggest career risk I took was when I actually came to Sears so I was I was an investment banker working at Dean Witter and Phil Purcell who's the CEO at the time wanted me to come work with him and do some strategy stuff and said, you know, maybe you can run the firm someday.

40:24I'm like, oh, you know, maybe. I had a chance to go into PE and be a partner at a firm with some friends of mine. And then I could go to Sears, which was not performing well. Everybody, you know, was not a darling of Wall Street and everything. And I went because I saw more upside. And my friends thought I was dead from the head up. They're like, you went to Sears? And I'm like, yeah, I think I can make a difference here. You know, I'm, uh, and I got the right tenure and so it'll be all right. And so I think, uh, taking risk is just about being prepared, thoughtful, uh, and then knowing what your purpose was at that time.

41:01Um, I had, uh, our third child was just being born. I'm like, okay, you know, I could go to work for Sears and maybe I'll have a life, uh, or I can go to work for this PE firm and I'll have no life, but I'll make a bunch of money. I, so I went to Sears, Turned out I worked every day for the next year on the breakup this year. So I was completely wrong. What am I going to do for me? But obviously it worked out because I'm very happy doing what I'm doing. Yeah, great. You know, and you talked about the power of AI in terms of how you're handling emails now. And I've heard you say that you can't promote, you can't promise that AI won't change jobs, but you can promise that people will be employable.

41:41Say more about that. So employable for us, the definition is you can get another job relatively quickly at the same for better compensation. That's what I mean. So even if your job goes away. And so what we say to people who are working on our AI projects now is, look, this is going to happen anyway. So you might as well be on the creation of it because we'll be everybody else and somebody's going to need somebody to help do this for them. So that's what employability means. I think there's another part, David, of AI that I wish we were farther ahead on. But I think it's an issue that is for all business and could be a tragedy of the commons, which is building good jobs.

42:25So if you ask individuals, what do you want from business? They don't say I want a profit margin. They might say I like the service I get. But really what they want are jobs. And if you look at what AI can do, it can get rid of a lot of jobs, particularly in a service business like ours. Or if you go into some of your own business, I mean, I go into restaurants now. There's nobody there. I was buying some stuff at a ski place the other day. There's not even a person there with their name on the badge from Boulder. And so it will take a lot of jobs away. I think the challenge a business has is how can we use this technology to do things for people that they want us to do that we couldn't do before because it was too expensive, that are a job that's a good job for people.

43:09So how do you create a$25 or$30 an hour job using technology that people will pay for, as opposed to I can use technology to get rid of an$18 an hour job? We're not that good at it yet. All of our AI teams have a responsibility to do it. If I said to you, oh, here's this great success, we don't have a great success. I do think if we're focused on the customer, we will come up with something we can do for them, which is better using AI than just saying you can just talk to our chatbots. Personally, how are you using AI to make yourself a better leader? So I have my own co-pilot agent and it reads emails.

43:52It does stuff. I use it all the time. I was coming to the office the other day and I was working on what we call a design build and deploy plan. And I thought, you know, we need some sort of checkpoints. And so I was on the way to the office and I didn't have time to do it. So I used ChatGPT and I did a paragraph on here's what I'm looking for. And it gave me like this four category, three sub points of here's how our check-ins. And I just printed off, gave it to our team. I said, oh, ChatGPT did. It looks pretty good to me. What do you think? They said, looks good. Off we go. So, you know, I might have spent two hours on that before.

44:29And, you know, we'll just change it if it's not right. You know, you're an extremely optimistic leader. And, you know, I see that trade in a lot of great CEOs. What do you do to keep your energy up so you can model that kind of leadership day to day? I try to be, well, one is be focused on your purpose. So know why I do this. I get up in the morning and I know what I'm trying to get accomplished. Two, be really focused on that time. But three, really manage my energy. So I've always been pretty good on managing my physical energy, getting workouts, eating right, that kind of stuff. I would say in the last seven or eight years, I've gotten a lot better on sleep as recovery time and necessary.

45:16So I used to go, I sleep six hours a day. I was proud of sleeping six hours a day. and then I read this book, Why We Sleep, and I come to the conclusion I'm going to get eight hours, seven to eight hours of sleep. Most days I get eight hours of sleep and I have more energy. I feel better. I'm in a better mood. The only thing my wife said to me, I have to tell you, I've been telling you you need more sleep for like 30 years. Why is it you have to read 300 pages to know what everybody else knows is true? I'm like, I don't know. I'm getting more sleep. Well, it sounds like I just heard about one of your real truth tellers, your wife.

45:54You know, Tom, this has been a lot of fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? Yep. Okay. The three words that best describe you. Curious, enthusiastic, change. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? The Pope. Your biggest pet peeve? Self-indulgence. Who would play you in a movie? No, that's a good question. I don't know. Tom Cruise. What's the best college football game you saw this year? The Georgia game. What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work? Trust. It's a little pushy that it's not has to do with work, but it's out there.

46:29What's the one thing you do just for you? Exercise. Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession? An heirloom that my mother gave me. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Either classic rock or NPR. What's something about you few people would know? You know, I'm such an open book. I'm really struggling with it. I'm trying to think, what do people about me, what do people not know about me? I write poetry. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never miss? Telling my wife I love her. You're out of the lightning round. Great job. You've been in this role now for a couple decades as CEO.

47:06And at some point, someone else will take over the reins as CEO of Allstate. What are you trying to drive so deeply into the organization that it never, ever goes away? A belief in that we're creating opportunity for our employees and improving communities. So improving communities, I talk about it all the time. We have a foundation. I've pre-funded the foundation so that even if a new leader comes in and they hate the work we're doing, There's enough money in there that it gives us a three to five year window out. So it's those two things, because I think we always have to be driven by customers and shareholders aren't going to let go either.

47:50Now, you have three kids, as I understand it. How has being a parent shaped the way that you lead? I think I'm more understanding of different points of view. and hoping that they can achieve what they want in their life. So when I first did my purpose work, I was like, look, I'm a good father. I have a good relationship with my kids. I don't want them to make my story their story. I don't want people who come to Allstate to have to make our story their story unless they really want it. And how do you go about leading at home? Mostly follow. What do you mean by that? Ask, lead, recognize your position, power.

48:33Um, uh, the, uh, it's, um, uh, you know, try, try to meet them what they want. So I'm a problem solver. Not all of my kids, when they talk to me, want their problem solved. Uh, and so I've had to learn to say, rather than, you know, here's the thing. They just want me to listen. They just really want me to say, you know, it's going to be okay. They want some empathy. Uh, and I'm like, oh, we could do these things, this thing here. And so I've had to learn to not be a problem solver at work or at home. And I think that helps me not be a problem solver sometimes at work. How do you learn how to be a good listener?

49:10I mean, you know, that's an important trait. It sounds like that's something that you've worked on and gotten better at. I mean, what was your process for doing that? Well, it's going to first I think about it physically. I'm like, OK, I have two ears and one mouth, so I should listen twice as often as I speak. So in literally like, and then sometimes David in a meeting, I'll look at my watch and I'll say, I'm not going to say anything for five minutes. It's hard for me. I'm a vacuum filler. And so I let the silence do the work. I say to our teams, let the silence do the work. So if you're in a board meeting, I tell people you're talking to our board.

49:43If they don't say anything, just stand there. It's going to be painful. You're going to be wondering, you've been, you're on boards, you know, you're going to, you're going to, and you got to just stand there, let the silence do the work. So if you just can convince yourself that it's going to be okay being silent, people will say the most interesting thing. As you look forward, Tom, what do you see as your unfinished business, both personally and for Allstate? For Allstate, my unfinished business is getting us down the path on Alley. So really embedding Allstate's agentic AI into our business.

50:21and because I've been here long enough, not necessarily smart as kind of a pretty fast processor, but I can see how it all fits together. So I think I have to get that done professionally. I still am, we are both, my wife, I have big believers in youth empowerment. And so like you pursuing something after a professional career, I think I will lean in more on youth empowerment and helping, Because I think kids, they don't carry all the baggage we have. They're risky. And you know what? Like, they're the future. Why wouldn't we help them? You know, you've mentioned empowerment as a word, you know, a few times.

51:01And it's a concept, you know. And a lot of times empowerment can be misinterpreted. You know, how do you, what's your definition of empowerment as a leader? I mean, and how do you know when to empower? I think you're right. I agree with you that empowerment is often misinterpreted. I think the best kind of empowerment is when I'm really clear with what I expect you to do, what the outcomes are, and even how I expect you to do it and say, just don't do these other things. Here's what I don't want to have happen. And then to then trust them. I think that empowers people as opposed to, hey, go solve this problem and let me know how you get there.

51:40Like, I don't think that's what a leader should do. And some people think that's not the right kind of empowerment. Some of my team thinks like, you know, you just need to like, tell me, tell me what you need done and I'll go get it done. I'm like, eh, like, I don't think so. So I think clarity is really important to empowerment because it tells people what the sides of the road are. Don't go over here, go here. So I think that's really important. And then I think you have to support people when they make a mistake, go in and help clean it up as opposed to blame. You mentioned trust as being one of those things that you're really learning more about outside of business, but it's tied somewhat to business.

52:20Where have you gone? Do you have a source or a resource that you've gone to that's helped you build your capability and understanding of trust? Has there been a book you've read that you'd recommend? How are you honing that skill? Like most things, I'm all over trying to get better and learn. And so I've read a bunch of books. I've talked to people. Richard Edelman has had trust parameter for 26 years, Robert Putnam wrote a book called The Upswing. I've concluded trust is a huge problem for us. Trust is down in everything. Only 20 % of people believe in government. Only 30 % of people believe in their neighbors.

52:58And trust is, if we don't have trust, there's no democracy. And I also think trust is important for your own personal freedom. If you don't trust the Uber driver, you're not going to go anyplace if you're in a different city. So we really need to work on trust. And the thing that, as you said, I'm very optimistic. The thing that genetically I'm wired against is negativity. And the world's gotten way too negative. We looked at how much negativity there is in the world, just United States, and we took total negative minus positive and said, what kind of advertising program to be? It's a$100 billion advertising program.

53:39It's more than the top 15 advertisers spend a year selling stuff. So Yum and all the advertising we did. $100 billion of us against us by us. We're just way too negative. I'm not saying we have to be Pollyannish. I'm not saying you have to. I think people, if you just stop for a second and think, hey, could this person be right? Can I just respect them for having an own point of view? And then be balanced about it. So I just want more balance in life. And then building relationships. We need to build more relationships amongst each other. We've gotten too diverse. The social relationships reinforce the same point of view as opposed to you broaden your perspective if you meet more people.

54:26Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? Constantly change yourself. there's there's a book written about ceos uh and it says basically the best ceos reinvent themselves every four years i bet if you look at your career you reinvented yourself you reinvented yourself now you're new dress yourself yum you reinvent yourself with pepsi so i would say be honest with yourself of who you are don't let go of what made you successful but don't hold on to it so tight that you don't do anything so if you if you watch people in the olympics the high bar and the low bar and there's people swinging around it.

55:06Let's say the low bar is your current success. You're going to have to let go of the low bar to get to the high bar. And so you're going to go back to the low bar occasionally, but you got to let go. So I'd be like, just keep changing, keep changing and life will be beautiful. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Tom, I knew I was going to enjoy this and I did. I want to thank you so much for the conversation and sharing the many insights that you offered up. Well, and thank you for helping other people and giving me a chance to be a part of your parade. So thanks.

55:41David, I can't help but just keep thinking about all the hilarious mayhem Allstate commercials that I've seen over the past three months. I mean, college football's over, but I feel like I still see mayhem all over my commercials. Yeah, well, you know, we all have a life of mayhem from time to time. And I think they're pretty good at capturing that. I love the story he tells when the mayhem guy just tossed a piece of popcorn and hit him straight in the forehead. Yeah, well, you got to you got to treat the CEO like he's just a normal guy. And he did it. And as much as they're paying that guy to do that, I bet they let him get away with flicking that popcorn.

56:19I bet they did. I bet they did. And David, I'm excited to debrief this episode with you so that our listeners walk away from this conversation with some real practical things that they can apply to their life and to their leadership. And one of the themes that really stood out to me in this conversation is this topic of purpose. I love the quote that Tom says. He says, you have to enroll others in your quest to be a better person. And I just love that. He also talks about having taken 75 ,000 employees through a process of discovering their personal purpose. And as a result of this, some people realized that their personal purpose was not aligned with insurance, so they left the company.

57:00And I'm curious, David, from your perspective, what do you do if there are people that work for you who feel like their job doesn't align with their personal sense of purpose? Well, first of all, I would say I really commend Tom and Allstate for investing in their people and getting them to understand what their personal purpose is. And I think that that goes a long way for them to build loyalty and credibility with their team. Because as Sam Walton used to say, no one will care about you unless you show them that you care about them. And I think the fact that they invested in the training that would allow people to really dig deep inside of their heart and their soul to figure out who they are and what they want to stand for and how they want to spend their time, I think that's just emblematic of the fact that Allstate cares about their people.

57:55You know, I think when people realize that their purpose is not aligned with what they might be working on, I really always encourage people to find what it is that turns them on and go after it. You know, you're only on this earth once, as people always say. And I know that's trite, but it's very, very true. So why spend your life working on something that doesn't get you juiced up every day? And, you know, I really think that that's what makes life go is when you can have passion for what you do and, you know, and love what you do. And when you love what you do, you're always better at it because, you know, first of all, you're usually pretty good at what you love.

58:45And then you can't wait to learn how to get even better at it. and you have this constant learning mindset and you just keep upping your game because you love it. It's like work is not work, it's your hobby. And, you know, the other point that I really love is that, you know, a lot of leaders don't want to give people that kind of training because they're afraid that they might come up with the idea that they should be doing something else. And I just think that's such hogwash. you know, we wrote a book, you know, on self-coaching. And in that book, you know, we have people really look hard at themselves.

59:25And, you know, a lot of times CEOs will buy the books that I write and share them with their companies. But a lot of CEOs didn't really want to give them that book because they didn't want to go through an exercise where they're looking at what they wanted to do. They were afraid of losing their people. But I think that's a lack of confidence in what you have to offer as a company and what you have to offer as a leader in terms of what people can learn by working with you. So I think it takes security to really do what Tom and Allstate is doing. And they're confident in what they have to offer.

1:00:01They're confident in Allstate. And they're confident that if they can help people find their purpose and align it with what they do, they're going to be a far better off company. And I think it's working for them. It also made me think of how much trust the employees must have in Tom as a leader to actually go through a process like this where they discover their purpose. And then they themselves have the willingness to say, hey, this isn't for me. And I'm going to trust that you mean what you say and that you want what's best for me. And you want something that aligns with what I feel like I'm put on the cert to do.

1:00:31And the fact is, is there are very, very few people that really say I'm out of here after doing that training. And, you know, that's looking at the wrong side of the decimal point, in my opinion. And, you know, but there's far, far, far more people say, hey, man, this is the kind of place I want to be because Allstate's investing in me. David, another thing that I heard Tom say several times during your conversation is that he is brutal about his time. And what he means by that is he's brutal about his time management. and he is very disciplined about how he spends his time and who he spends it with and what he says yes to.

1:01:09And I want to know, David, from your seat, I mean, you were CEO of Yum Brands for almost two decades. You have a lot going on now. How do you set boundaries around your time? Well, when I was at Yum, it was very easy. I looked at my calendar and I focused on three things. The three things that were critical to our company and the three things that I knew I had to do well if I was going to be able to keep my job and earn the right to keep my job. And so I focused my calendar around people, making sure I spent the right amount of time understanding and helping the people in our company grow. Two was customers.

1:01:48I felt that I had to be the chief customer officer. I didn't think anybody should know the customer better than me. And so I spent a lot of time talking to customers, going through all the research, really understanding customers, making sure we were doing the right kind of research to understand customers, and then making sure we had compelling marketing programs and operating programs to make our customers happy. So I really focused very much on customers. And the third thing I focused on was Wall Street. You know, I was the CEO of the company. I didn't think anybody should be better at communicating our story to Wall Street than me.

1:02:22I knew that I had to do it well. and I spent a lot of time and energy in making sure that Wall Street knew our story and I communicated proactively and I communicated clearly and I communicated in a way that would help drive our stock price. So those were the three things I looked at my calendar and if I saw things getting in the way of those three things and me doing the key things that I thought were critical in each of those areas, then I didn't let it stay on my calendar. And, you know, one of the things you have to do, no matter whether you're CEO or just coming up, you have to learn when to say no to things.

1:03:02You have to stay focused. And learning the power of no is important. Then as I moved on in my career and into what I'm doing right now, I went through a different process. I look back at my days at Yum, and I look back at all the time I'd spend at work, and I ask myself, what gives me joy? And then I ask myself, what takes away my joy? And I understood what the joy blockers were in my life, and I said, okay, I don't want to do any of those, okay? And then these are the things that give me joy, and that's what I was going to spend my time on, the joy builders. And for me, it's very clear. Okay.

1:03:43I love leadership development. That's why I do this podcast. That's why I have David Novak leadership. You know, I love making the world a better place by, you know, you know, developing better leaders and also, you know, helping, you know, helping people in need, you know, and helping people fulfill their potential. So, you know, we have a lot of things that we do on that front end. And I love it. I think those are really great. And I love golf. You know, those are the three things. Those are my three big passion areas and obviously my family. And so I spend time around those four things. And that's what I spend my time on.

1:04:25I spend time on the joy builders. And I am really good, Kula, at saying no. Anything doesn't fit, I say no. I think you guys probably attest to that fact. Can confirm. You are great at saying no. But I am saying yes to the things that matter most to me in my life and matter the most to others. And that's how I do it. I love that exercise because it really requires you to look inward and continue to develop that muscle of self-awareness. Because if you don't know what it is that brings you the most joy, then you're going to live a pretty directionless life just entering into all of these different things that might not add purpose or meaning or fulfillment to your life.

1:05:05So understanding yourself first really is the roadmap that helps orient you around what to say yes to. Right. And I think it also leads to good energy management. If you're focused on the things that really, you know, get you excited, you know, you're much better able to manage your energy and stay up and, you know, make the most out of your day. If you're spending time on things that sap you, your energy goes down, you're not nearly as productive, and it's debilitating. So it's important. I've spent a lot of time in my life always looking at my purpose, okay? Always looking at my navel, as some would say.

1:05:49Always looking in, always trying to make sure that I was guided by the light that I have in my life. And I think it's time well spent. So I think you really have to find personal time. You have to take the time to reflect. You have to get quiet time. You know, I think one of the things he talked about is the power of silence. Well, I mean, it's not just the silence that's in a meeting that you're having where people don't say anything because they don't agree. It's also the silence that you can create for yourself to listen to what you're thinking, what others are telling you. you know, evaluate, you know, where you are in your life.

1:06:33You can't do that when you're hustle, busing, filling your days up just with busy work. You know, that's why I think meditation is so powerful. You know, you know, taking that quiet time, finding it. Prayer is powerful. You know, it's quiet time where you get to listen. You listen to your inner voice. You listen to God. You listen to whomever you go to. You listen to Buddha. You listen to whoever it is that you seek value from. It's so interesting you say that, David. I think I, too, am a big practitioner of meditation. And I wasn't really patient enough to practice it until someone told me that it's like dental floss for your brain.

1:07:16And I just envisioned meditation like flicking gunk out of my brain. And all day, we're bombarded with all these messages and all these tasks and all these things we have to do. And it just continues to build up in our heads. So to your point, if you don't take that time to listen over time, all of that stuff just continues to build up like plaque on your teeth if you don't floss. So I think, too, not only getting quiet, getting quiet not only helps you reorient yourself around what matters, but it also helps you clear the space and kind of gets you back to this baseline of being able to determine what you want to let in and what you want to release.

1:07:56Absolutely. And, you know, when you go to the Performance Institute, which I believe Allstate would go to, and I actually went there with PepsiCo when I was there, you spend time on reflection. And anybody would tell you that reflection is critical. I hope everyone listening is inspired to become brutal with their time and takes inspiration from Tom and helps enroll other people in your quest to be a better person. Yeah, so Kula, I think really what we got out of this episode that I think is most powerful is, hey, you got to find time to understand what your personal purpose is. And then you have to manage your time so that you focus on what really matters.

1:08:41And when you do that, you're on your way to really maximizing not only your career, but I think your life. David, thanks again for another episode of How Leaders Lead. And thank you for listening. Stay tuned next Thursday, and we will see you then.